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The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
In this deeply original book, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy sets out in search of the telescopes and detectors that promise to answer the biggest questions in modern cosmology. Why is the universe expanding at an ever faster rate? What is the nature of the "dark matter" that makes up almost a quarter of the universe? Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life? Are there others besides our own? Ananthaswamy soon finds himself at the ends of the earth in remote and sometimes dangerous places. Take the Atacama Desert in the Chilean Andes, one of the coldest, driest places on the planet, where not even a blade of grass can survive. Its spectacularly clear skies and dry atmosphere allow astronomers to gather brilliant images of galaxies billions of light-years away. Ananthaswamy takes us inside the European Southern Observatory s Very Large Telescope on Mount Paranal, where four massive domes open to the sky each night "like dragons waking up." He also
322 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
465 people are currently reading
2040 people want to read
About the author
Anil Ananthaswamy
9 books165 followersANIL ANANTHASWAMY is former deputy news editor and current consultant for New Scientist. He is a guest editor at UC Santa Cruz’s renowned science-writing program and teaches an annual science journalism workshop at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. He is a freelance feature editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science’s “Front Matter” and has written for National Geographic News, Discover, and Matter. He has been a columnist for PBS NOVA’s The Nature of Reality blog. He won the UK Institute of Physics’ Physics Journalism award and the British Association of Science Writers’ award for Best Investigative Journalism. His first book, The Edge of Physics, was voted book of the year in 2010 by Physics World. He lives in Bangalore, India, and Berkeley, California.
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November 5, 2011
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When I first came across this book, I groaned a little. Yet another 'story of the mysteries of cosmology' title. Was there anything left to say? I'm pleased to say that my groan was unnecessary - this is one of the most enjoyable popular science books I've read all year. Although there's nothing new in the science itself, the main thread of Anil Ananthaswamy's book is a tour of the remarkable places where the expanding universe, dark matter, dark energy, the Higgs boson and more are being pursued. At each location we get some excellent historical context - I loved, for example, how he puts across the feel of the early days at the Mount Wilson observatory.
What makes this so enjoyable are the extremes of the locations where this leading edge physics takes place. One moment we are perched on a snow-covered mountain in California, the next we are in a deep mine. As we reach CERN we are plunged into a vast underground empire that any Bond villain would be proud of... only to contrast this with an experiment using a vast block of Antarctic ice as a neutrino detector. I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson's travel books, and while Ananthaswamy doesn't have Bryson's humour and homeliness, he does succeed in painting an excellent word picture of these locations, the people he meets and the far-reaching work that is being carried on there.
My only reservation with the book is that the science is mostly presented as if it is 100 percent fact, rather than our current best guess - something that, let's face it, is all it can be with cosmology (as in 'There's speculation, then there's more speculation, then there's cosmology'). For example dark matter is presented as if it were as certain as normal matter. In fact what we know is that the gravitational force calculation comes up with the wrong value at the level of galaxies. This could mean that the mass is wrong (hence dark matter), that the distances are wrong, or that Newton/Einstein are wrong on the scale of galaxies. Dark matter is the best supported possibility - but it remains just this. I think not to make this clear does cosmology no favours.
I accept, though, that it is particularly easy to fall into fallacious fact-speak when the detail of the science is not the main thrust of the book. You want to get the science out of the way in an easy, approachable fashion so you can concentrate on the travel book/history of science aspects. And bearing that in mind, I can easily overlook that reservation, because this is such a good, well-written book. If you want to get a feel for where the mysteries of the universe are wrestled with, I can't think of a better book to pick up. You'll be swept away by Ananthaswamy's expert storytelling.
Review first appeared on www.popularscience.co.uk - reproduced with permission.
May 11, 2020
Doing astronomy at remote places to get the best view of the cosmos
Gigantic telescopes with high resolutions are necessary to get a good view of the heavens, but we also need an unimpeded look with a clear sky, free from clouds, wind, and dry atmosphere 365 days a year. Such an environment helps us gather images of galaxies billions of light-years away that would answer many fundamental questions of astronomy and physics. Hence large telescopes are built at places like Atacama Desert in Chile at Paranal Observatory. The author provides his personal experiences of visiting these places and reporting the experiments conducted there. Other places of interests include an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota, where experiments are conducted to study dark matter particles. In Antarctica, 1.5 miles into the icy ground, efforts are underway for the detection fundamentals particles like neutrino. Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s oldest and deepest lake is also a hotspot for detecting neutrinos, and the Indian Astronomical Observatory in the Himalayas to study galaxies with optical, infrared, and gamma-ray telescopes. This book is not so much about the experiments or astronomy research, but it is about the experience of visiting these places.
Gigantic telescopes with high resolutions are necessary to get a good view of the heavens, but we also need an unimpeded look with a clear sky, free from clouds, wind, and dry atmosphere 365 days a year. Such an environment helps us gather images of galaxies billions of light-years away that would answer many fundamental questions of astronomy and physics. Hence large telescopes are built at places like Atacama Desert in Chile at Paranal Observatory. The author provides his personal experiences of visiting these places and reporting the experiments conducted there. Other places of interests include an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota, where experiments are conducted to study dark matter particles. In Antarctica, 1.5 miles into the icy ground, efforts are underway for the detection fundamentals particles like neutrino. Lake Baikal in Siberia, the world’s oldest and deepest lake is also a hotspot for detecting neutrinos, and the Indian Astronomical Observatory in the Himalayas to study galaxies with optical, infrared, and gamma-ray telescopes. This book is not so much about the experiments or astronomy research, but it is about the experience of visiting these places.
August 10, 2015
Simultaneously a science and travel book, Anil Ananthaswamy's The Edge of Physics is a very well-conceived book -- go to the edge of our planet to find out the extent of how much we know about the Universe. The book describes some fantastic scenes from extreme locations around the Earth, while telling us just what science does and doesn't know about the deep questions -- what is the Universe? How did it form, where is it going, why are all these particles and energies there, and why do fundamental physical constants have the values they have?
The book explains, in a manner that a lay reader can follow (albeit with some difficulty -- more on this later), all the physics that can answer these questions, and how scientists are trying to dig up more experimental evidence to help them answer more questions. It becomes clear that physics is in some sort of crisis at the moment -- all the easy experiments have been done, and there are all sorts of theories, but the experiments and measurements needed to take things further are very difficult. And there's a whole lot of things yet to be explained.
The experiments that are being done to rectify this are mind-boggling -- from Russian scientists trying to find neutrinos going through the massive frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia, to a huge array of radio telescopes in South Africa, to floating balloons over the Antarctic. The experiments devised, the locations chosen, and the sheer intricacy and innovation required to technically execute them is really mind-blowing, and definitely worth reading about. The places described are all extreme (saying he's gone to the edge of the Earth is no exaggeration) -- the South Pole, a deep mine in the United States, Ladakh, Hawaii, Siberia -- which makes the travel part of the book fascinating reading. The depictions of the scientists themselves are also interesting, telling you everything from what drives them to how they spend their leisure time. (Spoiler alert: Russian scientists consider no hour too early and no surface ice too thin when it comes to consuming vodka.)
Like I said, the book also updates you on where exactly the frontiers of cosmology currently lie. Unfortunately, though, physics is probably too complicated to describe to a lay reader, and I felt like that was the one thing this book suffered from -- the physics was very complicated, and it was hard to understand the details. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that even this involved description is giving you only a fraction of the details, so that you don't truly understand things. I don't blame the author though -- it simply isn't possible to explain all of cosmology in such a small place, and if he'd tried, the book would have been unreadable.
Nevertheless, this is a book definitely worth reading, at least for the travel parts and the description of the experiments. It also gets philosophical in parts, and through everything described, one definitely does appreciate humanity's struggle its place in the Universe and all its infinite mysteries.
The book explains, in a manner that a lay reader can follow (albeit with some difficulty -- more on this later), all the physics that can answer these questions, and how scientists are trying to dig up more experimental evidence to help them answer more questions. It becomes clear that physics is in some sort of crisis at the moment -- all the easy experiments have been done, and there are all sorts of theories, but the experiments and measurements needed to take things further are very difficult. And there's a whole lot of things yet to be explained.
The experiments that are being done to rectify this are mind-boggling -- from Russian scientists trying to find neutrinos going through the massive frozen Lake Baikal in Siberia, to a huge array of radio telescopes in South Africa, to floating balloons over the Antarctic. The experiments devised, the locations chosen, and the sheer intricacy and innovation required to technically execute them is really mind-blowing, and definitely worth reading about. The places described are all extreme (saying he's gone to the edge of the Earth is no exaggeration) -- the South Pole, a deep mine in the United States, Ladakh, Hawaii, Siberia -- which makes the travel part of the book fascinating reading. The depictions of the scientists themselves are also interesting, telling you everything from what drives them to how they spend their leisure time. (Spoiler alert: Russian scientists consider no hour too early and no surface ice too thin when it comes to consuming vodka.)
Like I said, the book also updates you on where exactly the frontiers of cosmology currently lie. Unfortunately, though, physics is probably too complicated to describe to a lay reader, and I felt like that was the one thing this book suffered from -- the physics was very complicated, and it was hard to understand the details. This was made even more frustrating by the fact that even this involved description is giving you only a fraction of the details, so that you don't truly understand things. I don't blame the author though -- it simply isn't possible to explain all of cosmology in such a small place, and if he'd tried, the book would have been unreadable.
Nevertheless, this is a book definitely worth reading, at least for the travel parts and the description of the experiments. It also gets philosophical in parts, and through everything described, one definitely does appreciate humanity's struggle its place in the Universe and all its infinite mysteries.
January 10, 2010
The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe by Anil Ananthaswamy is not quite what it seems.
While the title promises a look at the bleeding edge of physics and cosmology, this book in actuality has a broader canvas. Anathaswamy, a journalist at the New Scientist, focuses on the places he goes and the people he meets on his journey to understand the experiments, equipment and the people associated with them.
High energy physics requires special conditions to have their detectors work. If you want to detect WIMPs, look for primordial antimatter, and try and find Higgs Bosons, you need special equipment, which just can't be built anywhere. In this book, Ananthaswamy chronicles his journeys to these often remote locations and talks with the people there. In the midst of this, the book is filled out (some might say padded) with a large number of digressions. In detailing his trip to Antarctica, for example, Ananthaswamy feels compelled to discuss the race to reach the South Pole first by Shackleton and Scott. It really has little to do with the physics experiments going on at Antarctica, and while its a fascinating bit of history, it is out of place as far as the title of the book is concerned.
This portion, and almost all of the other portions of the book read like travelogue, as Ananthaswamy details the effort he has to take in order to get to some of the more remote locations where the physics experiments are taking place, such as Lake Baikal, the Chilean Desert, South Africa, and the Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota. Those far more interested in the physics are going to be annoyed by these portions of the book. For myself, I liked these digressions, and accepted them as part of the matrix of the book. I was fascinated by, for example, his journey to Lake Baikal. I didn't know much about the lake, and in reading this book I learned as much, if not more about the lake than about the neutrino detector submerged there.
It's a relatively conversational tone of a book, with no equations and not a lot of hard science. It's well edited and a very easy read. I think that the target audience for this book are those who have taken physics in high school, maybe some general science in College, but do not generally have a strong science background. My mother is has no special science background. and no post-secondary education I think she would be able to understand and enjoy this book.
Conversely, those who have physics degrees, and have a stake in the "cage match" that is going on between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity should stay far away from this book.Ananthaswamy does not "discuss the controversy", to coin a phrase. While the information on the experiments might be interesting to physics experts, the non physics portions of the book will probably not be to their taste.
If you are looking for a book on the level of Lee Smolin or Brian Greene, no matter which camp you support, then this book is definitely not your cup of tea and you probably will be frankly bored by large portions of this slim volume. If your interest is more broad, and your commitment to controversies in the field are not intense, then this relatively painless look at the field, and more especially, the people and places associated with high energy physics is entertaining and informative, even if (and for me especially because) it does contain a wide ranging view of the people and the places the physics takes place.
While the title promises a look at the bleeding edge of physics and cosmology, this book in actuality has a broader canvas. Anathaswamy, a journalist at the New Scientist, focuses on the places he goes and the people he meets on his journey to understand the experiments, equipment and the people associated with them.
High energy physics requires special conditions to have their detectors work. If you want to detect WIMPs, look for primordial antimatter, and try and find Higgs Bosons, you need special equipment, which just can't be built anywhere. In this book, Ananthaswamy chronicles his journeys to these often remote locations and talks with the people there. In the midst of this, the book is filled out (some might say padded) with a large number of digressions. In detailing his trip to Antarctica, for example, Ananthaswamy feels compelled to discuss the race to reach the South Pole first by Shackleton and Scott. It really has little to do with the physics experiments going on at Antarctica, and while its a fascinating bit of history, it is out of place as far as the title of the book is concerned.
This portion, and almost all of the other portions of the book read like travelogue, as Ananthaswamy details the effort he has to take in order to get to some of the more remote locations where the physics experiments are taking place, such as Lake Baikal, the Chilean Desert, South Africa, and the Soudan Underground Mine in Minnesota. Those far more interested in the physics are going to be annoyed by these portions of the book. For myself, I liked these digressions, and accepted them as part of the matrix of the book. I was fascinated by, for example, his journey to Lake Baikal. I didn't know much about the lake, and in reading this book I learned as much, if not more about the lake than about the neutrino detector submerged there.
It's a relatively conversational tone of a book, with no equations and not a lot of hard science. It's well edited and a very easy read. I think that the target audience for this book are those who have taken physics in high school, maybe some general science in College, but do not generally have a strong science background. My mother is has no special science background. and no post-secondary education I think she would be able to understand and enjoy this book.
Conversely, those who have physics degrees, and have a stake in the "cage match" that is going on between String Theory and Loop Quantum Gravity should stay far away from this book.Ananthaswamy does not "discuss the controversy", to coin a phrase. While the information on the experiments might be interesting to physics experts, the non physics portions of the book will probably not be to their taste.
If you are looking for a book on the level of Lee Smolin or Brian Greene, no matter which camp you support, then this book is definitely not your cup of tea and you probably will be frankly bored by large portions of this slim volume. If your interest is more broad, and your commitment to controversies in the field are not intense, then this relatively painless look at the field, and more especially, the people and places associated with high energy physics is entertaining and informative, even if (and for me especially because) it does contain a wide ranging view of the people and the places the physics takes place.
May 6, 2012
Per fare il Fisico o l'Astronomo ci vuole il fisico, per fare l'Ingegnere al servizio del Fisico e dell'Astronomo ci vuole la pazienza di un bonzo, oltre alle competenze specifiche dei ruoli. E che competenze.
Ma andiamo con ordine. L'autore descrive una decina di luoghi, terrestri e cosmici, e strutture nelle quali i Fisici, sia teorici sia sperimentali, cercano risposte alle congetture che individuano l'esistenza di particelle della materia, dell'antimateria e della materia oscura non ancora sufficientemente studiate o del tutto ipotetiche.
Questi luoghi non sono esattamente quelli che sceglierebbe il direttore del Club Méditerranée; tutt'altro, sono in zone impervie, estreme come i ghiacciai del polo Sud, le vette delle montagne andine, ex miniere in disuso, deserti, laghi ghiacciati, particolari zone dello spazio con specifiche caratteristiche, perché si cercano i cieli più tersi, il ghiaccio più spesso, l'acqua più limpida, la gravitazione ottimale in modo da captare più facilmente l'eventuale presenza di queste particelle.
Io mi sono creata un'immagine che mi può aiutare a capire la difficoltà con cui queste persone, che lavorano in condizioni estreme al limite della resistenza, cercano con mezzi di una complessità e precisione tecnologica sorprendente, di isolare solo e quel rumore, onda o lampo di luce che darebbe ragione di tanti sforzi. Ecco: immagina di essere in una discoteca con la musica a tutto volume, la gente che balla pestando i piedi a terra, bicchieri che cadono e si rompono, urla, risa ecc. e si deve trovare, ammesso che capiti, il suono della smagliatura di una calza di nylon di una ragazza. Bisogna escludere tutto il resto del rumore, che potrebbe però avere implicazioni nelle cause della smagliatura, e stare attenti con le orecchie aperte a parabola, meglio se aiutati da strumenti estremamente sensibili.
Lo so, è riduttivo, ma a me, un pochino, rende l'idea.
Il libro non è semplicissimo nei concetti ma l'esposizione è chiara. Più che le nozioni è interessante seguire i processi induttivi e deduttivi che fanno questi scienziati superando, talvolta, la stessa logica e inventando possibili condizioni comportamentali della materia e dell'energia che creano ambienti e universi astratti ma possibili.
Ma andiamo con ordine. L'autore descrive una decina di luoghi, terrestri e cosmici, e strutture nelle quali i Fisici, sia teorici sia sperimentali, cercano risposte alle congetture che individuano l'esistenza di particelle della materia, dell'antimateria e della materia oscura non ancora sufficientemente studiate o del tutto ipotetiche.
Questi luoghi non sono esattamente quelli che sceglierebbe il direttore del Club Méditerranée; tutt'altro, sono in zone impervie, estreme come i ghiacciai del polo Sud, le vette delle montagne andine, ex miniere in disuso, deserti, laghi ghiacciati, particolari zone dello spazio con specifiche caratteristiche, perché si cercano i cieli più tersi, il ghiaccio più spesso, l'acqua più limpida, la gravitazione ottimale in modo da captare più facilmente l'eventuale presenza di queste particelle.
Io mi sono creata un'immagine che mi può aiutare a capire la difficoltà con cui queste persone, che lavorano in condizioni estreme al limite della resistenza, cercano con mezzi di una complessità e precisione tecnologica sorprendente, di isolare solo e quel rumore, onda o lampo di luce che darebbe ragione di tanti sforzi. Ecco: immagina di essere in una discoteca con la musica a tutto volume, la gente che balla pestando i piedi a terra, bicchieri che cadono e si rompono, urla, risa ecc. e si deve trovare, ammesso che capiti, il suono della smagliatura di una calza di nylon di una ragazza. Bisogna escludere tutto il resto del rumore, che potrebbe però avere implicazioni nelle cause della smagliatura, e stare attenti con le orecchie aperte a parabola, meglio se aiutati da strumenti estremamente sensibili.
Lo so, è riduttivo, ma a me, un pochino, rende l'idea.
Il libro non è semplicissimo nei concetti ma l'esposizione è chiara. Più che le nozioni è interessante seguire i processi induttivi e deduttivi che fanno questi scienziati superando, talvolta, la stessa logica e inventando possibili condizioni comportamentali della materia e dell'energia che creano ambienti e universi astratti ma possibili.
January 23, 2021
I was deceived by the title, thinking it's focus was going to be on the science of physics. Instead I found it to be about nearly everything else but. Kind of like going to a theater...shining a spotlight inside...but instead of lighting up the stage...it focuses on the audience, ushers, exit sign, wall paneling, and so on. I will be honest and say I got about halfway, through laborious efforts on my part, and then could not find it in me to continue. It seems to drawl on and on, never finding its rhythm and unable to find itself either. Edge of physics. I guess the title is also a warning. It takes you just outside the realm of physics. Without ever venturing in but stopping short. If I can persuade myself to give another go I may update review.
December 29, 2024
When I was a young adult my father gave me a set of books called "The Gentleman's Companion". Basically the author traveled the world and wrote down good food recipes (volume 1) and good drink recipes (volume 2). Along with stories of the places and people he met. The books are no longer in print, but can be purchased in used books stores online. The writing style is like nothing else, but easily recognizable.
What do these books have to do with this book review. Mostly nothing other than the author travels the world talking to brilliant physicist trying to discover the evolution of the universe. Trips to Europe, Chili, Africa,... Well anywhere that is dark and dry and free of electromagnetic pollution.
It was bit dry, and a bit wordy, and a bit dated. Having said that I learned about the subculture of physicist who are trying to figure out the universe, and the hardships of where they work. I found the book through the last book I read on the math of deep learning. Same author. If you want a pop science view of cosmology this is a good read.
What do these books have to do with this book review. Mostly nothing other than the author travels the world talking to brilliant physicist trying to discover the evolution of the universe. Trips to Europe, Chili, Africa,... Well anywhere that is dark and dry and free of electromagnetic pollution.
It was bit dry, and a bit wordy, and a bit dated. Having said that I learned about the subculture of physicist who are trying to figure out the universe, and the hardships of where they work. I found the book through the last book I read on the math of deep learning. Same author. If you want a pop science view of cosmology this is a good read.
March 22, 2019
Not bad. Well written, engaging, combining remote travel with the limits of science.
June 12, 2024
Overview:
I like reading & thinking all about physics and that’s the reason, I chose to read this one but this book is written & organised so poorly that I lost the interest of reading physics book at all.
There are just endless paragraphs of content spit out by the Author which almost feels like reading the nonsense logs of going to a place and describing it in every nook and corner of it, which felt exhausting. I understand that the Author is trying to give a glimpse of the environment but it cannot be just endless content without any kinda visualisation or segregation of that enormous one into chunks.
The entire book took me about 6 months, I even got the idea multiple times to drop it in between but I have this bad habit of completing the book or a movie fully read/watched, no matter how bad it is, and that’s the reason I finished reading it in full.
There are some parts of the book that provided some physics-related facts that were interesting but again most of them were almost known and I’ve read them in other physics books.
In essence, it is a book for those who have an infinite amount of patience & time to sit & study the nuances of the logs of the author’s scientific observatory trips.
My Notes & excerpts from the book:
“The gods themselves are later than creation,”
The gods themselves are later than creation
“Nearly 90 percent of the mass of galaxies seems to be made of matter that is unknown and unseen. We know it must be there, for without its gravitational pull the galaxies would have disintegrated.”
W/o Dark matter, galaxies cant exist
“Why does the proton weigh almost two thousand times more than the electron”
Fact: Proton weight > 2000 times of electron
“gravity so much weaker than the electromagnetic force”
Fact: EMF>Gravity
“The greatest advances in physics have come when theory has moved in near-lockstep with experiment. Sometimes the theory has come first and sometimes it's the other way around. For instance, it was an experiment performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley—showing that the speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer—that influenced Einstein's 1905 formulation of the special theory of relativity. A decade later, Einstein produced the general theory of relativity, but it was only after experiments in 1919 verified its fascinating implication—the bending of starlight by the sun's gravity—that the theory gained widespread acceptance.”
About the formulation of relativity theory
“neutrinos, which are elusive subatomic particles pervading the universe. Neutrinos barely interact with matter and travel unhindered through space, carrying information about the distant reaches of the cosmos in ways that no other particle can”
About neutrinos
“Hubble discovered that our universe is expanding”
Hubble discovered that our universe is expanding
“As extreme destinations go, there are few that compare with Antarctica, on average the coldest, driest, and highest continent on Earth. It's a land so frigid that a sharp intake of breath can sear one's lungs. Moist exhaled air freezes in an instant, and mortal danger, in the form of snow-covered crevasses, is only a moment of distraction away. Still, cosmologists cherish the Antarctic Plateau for its thin, dry, stable, and unpolluted air, and they are building gigantic telescopes to probe the cosmic microwave background with a precision that's impossible to emulate almost anywhere else on Earth. But it's not just the air above Antarctica that attracts the scientists. They are also turning the kilometers-thick ice at the South Pole into a neutrino detector. Nowhere else does there exist a block of material so massive, clear, and solid that it can be used to study the slipperiest particle in the universe. A frozen wasteland could lead us toward the correct theory of quantum gravity.”
About Antartica
“the telescope that had helped confirm that our universe was more than the Milky Way”
“Having dropped out of school after eighth grade, Humason had become a pack-mule driver for the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1915. Soon he joined the janitorial staff on the mountain, and as a janitor he started helping out with the telescope operations, showing such adeptness that he was promoted to night assistant in 1919 and then to assistant astronomer. He would work with Hubble until 1953, and along the way he picked up an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Lund University, "making him history's only scientist ever to skip from eighth grade to a Ph.D.””
“It was around then that Einstein arrived in Pasadena, and in February 1931 he was driven up to Mount Wilson with Hubble in a "sleek Pierce-Arrow touring car" that had been bought for the occasion. At the observatory, Einstein was suitably impressed by the telescopes, and, "to everyone's alarm, he insisted on climbing over the steel framework of the 100-inch while rattling off an extensive knowledge of its every appliance." Elsa, who was told that the telescope was being used to figure out the size and shape of the universe, reportedly retorted, "Well, my husband does that on the back of an old envelope." Despite Elsa's faith in his abilities, Einstein had turned out to be wrong on this count: His general theory of relativity suggested that the universe could not be static, but his belief in an unchanging universe was so strong that he had tweaked the equations to accommodate it. Faced with Hubble's discovery, Einstein conceded his error.”
Einstein’s error
“it was Hubble who shattered our view of a static universe. It took someone of his personality and persuasive skills to convince the broader astronomical community that the universe was expanding. Hubble himself refused to make that claim, preferring to report on what he was observing and leaving the theorizing to others. But his data strongly suggested that the universe had a beginning, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day. If the galaxies were speeding away, then they must have been closer at one time, and if you worked backward, the linear distance-velocity relationship was such that there would have been a time when all the matter in the universe would have been at the same place. Our universe went from being merely the Milky Way, forever in its current form, to one in which our galaxy was one of many, all of which were speeding away from us in a manner that more than hinted at a primordial explosion. The idea of a big bang began to take shape.”
Hubble’s expanding universe concept which shaped big bang theory
“In the mid-1930s, Zwicky used it to open up a whole new mystery. He observed that the galaxies in the Coma cluster were moving too fast to make any sense. The average speed of galaxies within a cluster depends on the cluster's total mass, and the mass of the cluster, which Zwicky estimated from the total number of galaxies that could be observed, was too low. Theoretically, the mass did not have enough gravity to keep the galaxies bound to the cluster—they should have dispersed long ago. Yet there they were. Something was keeping them together. Far ahead of his time, Zwicky suggested that more than 90 percent of the mass of the Coma cluster was made of unseen matter. Nearly eighty years later, physicists are still trying to make sense of this "dark matter." On the trail of one such pioneering experiment, I soon found myself deep within an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota”
Pioneer of Dark Matter
“Did galaxies have any motions apart from those caused by the expansion of the universe? Her answer was yes.”
About Galaxies’ motions
“Soon after arriving, Rubin nailed the idea that galaxies have much more mass than can be accounted for by luminous matter alone. She was not the first to grapple with the problem of missing mass. By the mid-1930s, Fritz Zwicky had already observed that galaxies in the Coma cluster were moving at speeds too high to be explained by the cluster's observed mass. He reasoned that there had to be more mass in this and other clusters than met the eye, providing the gravity needed to hold the clusters together. But astronomers had never quite taken Zwicky's assertion about unseen mass seriously.”
About mass of galaxies
“The story of the neutrino begins in the late 1920s. Physicists had been puzzling over something called radioactive beta decay, in which an atom changes from, say, carbon-14 to nitrogen-14. Carbon-14 has eight neutrons and six protons. During beta decay, one of these neutrons decays into a proton and emits an electron. The new nucleus, now with seven protons and seven neutrons, is transformed into nitrogen-14. But during this process, some energy seemed to go missing, violating the law of conservation of energy. It was the Austrian-born physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli who finally figured out what was going on.”
Story of Neutrinos
“When Einstein published his general theory, in 1916, he overturned long-cherished Newtonian notions of gravity. No longer was it some kind of force exerted by one celestial object on another. Gravity, according to Einstein, arose as a result of the curvature of spacetime. Four-dimensional spacetime was not just a static backdrop to the motion of stars and planets, it was an active participant in the celestial drama. Any object, however small, caused spacetime to curve in a manner proportional to the object's mass, and everything in the vicinity of the object was now constrained to move along that curved spacetime. We can best visualize this by imagining a heavy ball placed on a taut rubber sheet. The ball dents the rubber sheet, and if a smaller ball starts rolling along the sheet, it has to follow the curvature forced upon the sheet by the heavier ball. If the smaller ball is too far away and the rubber sheet around it isn't affected by the heavier ball, the smaller ball will move as if the heavier one did not exist. The rubber sheet is analogous to spacetime, and the balls are analogous to planets, stars, and galaxies. Gravity, then, is the curvature of spacetime.
Light, like stars and planets, also has to follow the curvature of spacetime - for where else can it go?
Einstein predicted that light from a star passing close to the sun would bend ever so slightly toward the sun. In a now legendary experiment, British astronomer Arthur Eddington traveled to the island of Príncipe, off the coast of West Africa, to observe the position of stars during a total solar eclipse on May 29, 1919. That year, the eclipse could be viewed all along a stretch of the Atlantic, from Brazil to West Africa. Helpfully, the eclipsed sun was passing in front of the Hyades, a bright cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. Eddington photographed these stars during the eclipse and claimed that the sun was bending their light. Another team of astronomers, who had traveled to Sobral, in northern Brazil, to study the same phenomenon during the same eclipse, corroborated the findings. On September 27th, Einstein wrote in a postcard to his mother, "... joyous news today ... English expeditions have actually measured the deflection of starlight." “
Curvature of spacetime with an analogy of balls on the rubber sheet
“The first of the four gigantic mirrors came from France to Antofa-gasta in December 1997, after a month-long voyage by ship. Instead of the two hours or so it would take me, it took a massive trailer more than two days to reach the mountaintop. You could have walked up alongside it. The fragile load was treated with extreme care; at times, road graders smoothed the path in front of the trailer. In fact, the operation was so delicate that the ESO staff first did a test run of the entire process using a concrete dummy mirror weighing all of 23 tons, and only when they had worked out all the kinks did they transport the real mirror. Astronomers must have held their collective breath until the fourth and final mirror made it to the mountain-top in 2000”
On gigantic telescope mirrors
“Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest, and driest continent on the globe, exactly the conditions that have made it crucial to cosmology”
Geography of Antartica
“BESS is attempting to answer one of the most perplexing mysteries in cosmology: Why is our universe made of matter and not antimatter? After all, theory says that both matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts in the big bang. But matter abounds—in the form of stars, galaxies, planets, and people—while no one has ever detected a single particle of primordial antimatter. BESS is looking for one.”
BESS is to look for anti-matter
“But more than accidents, it's the method of drilling that's the greatest cause for concern. The team needed one that would be efficient. Boring into the ice with metal or diamond drill bits was deemed too slow—it would take an entire summer to drill just one hole. In any case, it's impractical to use mechanical drills to make a hole half a meter wide. Blasting with explosives is also not an option. The only solution is hot water. But, as Duling put it, "water in one of the coldest environments on Earth is a horrible combination." A veteran driller who had been with the team for many years, Dul-ing provided essential context. First, the hot water pouring out of the nozzle has to carry an astonishing amount of energy (a combination of its temperature and pressure) to melt the ice. "The nozzle puts out approximately sixty-seven hundred horsepower—that's about as powerful as the biggest railroad engine on Earth," he said—and as a former conductor on the Burlington Northern, he knew what he was talking about. But melting the ice is not enough; the drill has to keep plunging down. The IceCube setup uses gravity as an ingenious aid. The drill is weighted with more than half a ton of steel, so it sinks straight down like a plumb bob as the ice melts beneath it, deviating less than a meter from the vertical by the time it has reached the bottom. It takes twenty-four hours to descend 2.45 kilometers and ten hours to come back up, using more than 5,000 gallons of fuel, every ounce of which has to be flown in on U.S. military cargo planes.”
Method of drilling ice holes in Antarctic
“The conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics has flummoxed physicists for decades. The former is a theory of gravity on the grandest of scales—that of the universe itself. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, illuminates the behavior of the smallest particles. Both work amazingly well at explaining the observed world, except in situations where they need to work together, such as inside a black hole, where enormous gravitational forces have to contend with matter compressed into microscopic volumes. Or in the very early universe, when spacetime, which is described by general relativity, was so small that the rules of quantum mechanics also held sway. Quantum mechanics has been successfully used to describe three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force and the weak and strong nuclear forces. For each of these forces, physicists have what are called field theories—descriptions of fields specific to each force. Each force, in turn, is mediated by the exchange of particular particles—photons for the electromagnetic force, W and Z bosons for the weak nuclear force, and gluons for the strong nuclear force. The odd one out is gravity. There is no field theory for gravity, no particle that we know of that is exchanged between entities feeling its force (other than the hypothetical graviton). This is profoundly unsettling to physicists, who think that all the fundamental forces were unified as one in the early universe and hence should all be described using the same physics. “
4 natural forces
“Once the IceCube team drilled the first hole, a team led by Buford Price of UC Berkeley carried out a detailed analysis of the ice, using a tool called a dust logger. As this device is lowered down a hole in the ice, it fires a laser and analyzes the reflections. The dust logger showed that there are fine layers of dust within the ice, deposited over tens of thousands of years, some due to ancient volcanic eruptions. But below a depth of about 2,100 meters, the device found very little dust. The ice at 2,450 meters is more than sixty thousand years old—and crystal clear”
Mind boggling fact, 2km under the ice
“a statue on one side of Building 40 seems both anomalous and appropriate: a 6-foot-high cast-metal figure of the Hindu god Shiva. It stands at the end of a gravel-strewn path. In this particular form, as Nataraja, the king of dance, the multi-limbed, long-haired Shiva is dancing inside a giant ring of fire. His right leg is trampling the dwarf of ignorance; the left is raised, knee bent, in a posture of delicate balance. Nataraja dances to end one cosmic cycle and beget the next, a metaphor for the cyclical nature of the universe in Hindu cosmology. The historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy once wrote of the dance: Shiva rises from his rapture and, dancing, sends through inert matter pulsing waves of awakening sound. Suddenly, matter also dances, appearing as a brilliance around him. Dancing, Shiva sustains the world's diverse phenomena, its creation and existence. And, in the fullness of time, still dancing, he destroys all forms—everything disintegrates, apparently into nothingness, and is given new rest. Then, out of the thin vapor, matter and life are created again. Shiva's dance scatters the darkness of illusion, burns the thread of causality.”
About Shiva statue outside CERN
“Physics wasn't Gianotti's first love. "I came to physics from very far away," she told me. "When I was a young girl, I loved art and music. I had been studying piano quite seriously at a conservatory and had taken courses in high school targeted towards literature, languages like ancient Greek and Latin, philosophy, and history of art. I loved these subjects, but I was also a very curious little girl. I was fascinated by the big questions. Why are things the way they are? This possibility of answering fundamental questions has always attracted me—my mind, my spirit, everything." She stumbled upon physics soon afterward. "I discovered that physics is really interested in the most fundamental questions," she said. More than philosophy? "Even more," she said, speaking slowly to emphasize each syllable. "Because experimental physics is based on facts. It is answering fundamental questions—not just giving an answer to your question by inventing something, but proving it. This is very, very nice”
Transition story of a scientist from art to physics
“Most of the mass of atoms in the universe consists of protons and neutrons (electrons contribute less than one part in a thousand to the mass of atoms). Pro
I like reading & thinking all about physics and that’s the reason, I chose to read this one but this book is written & organised so poorly that I lost the interest of reading physics book at all.
There are just endless paragraphs of content spit out by the Author which almost feels like reading the nonsense logs of going to a place and describing it in every nook and corner of it, which felt exhausting. I understand that the Author is trying to give a glimpse of the environment but it cannot be just endless content without any kinda visualisation or segregation of that enormous one into chunks.
The entire book took me about 6 months, I even got the idea multiple times to drop it in between but I have this bad habit of completing the book or a movie fully read/watched, no matter how bad it is, and that’s the reason I finished reading it in full.
There are some parts of the book that provided some physics-related facts that were interesting but again most of them were almost known and I’ve read them in other physics books.
In essence, it is a book for those who have an infinite amount of patience & time to sit & study the nuances of the logs of the author’s scientific observatory trips.
My Notes & excerpts from the book:
“The gods themselves are later than creation,”
The gods themselves are later than creation
“Nearly 90 percent of the mass of galaxies seems to be made of matter that is unknown and unseen. We know it must be there, for without its gravitational pull the galaxies would have disintegrated.”
W/o Dark matter, galaxies cant exist
“Why does the proton weigh almost two thousand times more than the electron”
Fact: Proton weight > 2000 times of electron
“gravity so much weaker than the electromagnetic force”
Fact: EMF>Gravity
“The greatest advances in physics have come when theory has moved in near-lockstep with experiment. Sometimes the theory has come first and sometimes it's the other way around. For instance, it was an experiment performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley—showing that the speed of light is independent of the motion of the observer—that influenced Einstein's 1905 formulation of the special theory of relativity. A decade later, Einstein produced the general theory of relativity, but it was only after experiments in 1919 verified its fascinating implication—the bending of starlight by the sun's gravity—that the theory gained widespread acceptance.”
About the formulation of relativity theory
“neutrinos, which are elusive subatomic particles pervading the universe. Neutrinos barely interact with matter and travel unhindered through space, carrying information about the distant reaches of the cosmos in ways that no other particle can”
About neutrinos
“Hubble discovered that our universe is expanding”
Hubble discovered that our universe is expanding
“As extreme destinations go, there are few that compare with Antarctica, on average the coldest, driest, and highest continent on Earth. It's a land so frigid that a sharp intake of breath can sear one's lungs. Moist exhaled air freezes in an instant, and mortal danger, in the form of snow-covered crevasses, is only a moment of distraction away. Still, cosmologists cherish the Antarctic Plateau for its thin, dry, stable, and unpolluted air, and they are building gigantic telescopes to probe the cosmic microwave background with a precision that's impossible to emulate almost anywhere else on Earth. But it's not just the air above Antarctica that attracts the scientists. They are also turning the kilometers-thick ice at the South Pole into a neutrino detector. Nowhere else does there exist a block of material so massive, clear, and solid that it can be used to study the slipperiest particle in the universe. A frozen wasteland could lead us toward the correct theory of quantum gravity.”
About Antartica
“the telescope that had helped confirm that our universe was more than the Milky Way”
“Having dropped out of school after eighth grade, Humason had become a pack-mule driver for the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1915. Soon he joined the janitorial staff on the mountain, and as a janitor he started helping out with the telescope operations, showing such adeptness that he was promoted to night assistant in 1919 and then to assistant astronomer. He would work with Hubble until 1953, and along the way he picked up an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Lund University, "making him history's only scientist ever to skip from eighth grade to a Ph.D.””
“It was around then that Einstein arrived in Pasadena, and in February 1931 he was driven up to Mount Wilson with Hubble in a "sleek Pierce-Arrow touring car" that had been bought for the occasion. At the observatory, Einstein was suitably impressed by the telescopes, and, "to everyone's alarm, he insisted on climbing over the steel framework of the 100-inch while rattling off an extensive knowledge of its every appliance." Elsa, who was told that the telescope was being used to figure out the size and shape of the universe, reportedly retorted, "Well, my husband does that on the back of an old envelope." Despite Elsa's faith in his abilities, Einstein had turned out to be wrong on this count: His general theory of relativity suggested that the universe could not be static, but his belief in an unchanging universe was so strong that he had tweaked the equations to accommodate it. Faced with Hubble's discovery, Einstein conceded his error.”
Einstein’s error
“it was Hubble who shattered our view of a static universe. It took someone of his personality and persuasive skills to convince the broader astronomical community that the universe was expanding. Hubble himself refused to make that claim, preferring to report on what he was observing and leaving the theorizing to others. But his data strongly suggested that the universe had a beginning, contrary to the conventional wisdom of the day. If the galaxies were speeding away, then they must have been closer at one time, and if you worked backward, the linear distance-velocity relationship was such that there would have been a time when all the matter in the universe would have been at the same place. Our universe went from being merely the Milky Way, forever in its current form, to one in which our galaxy was one of many, all of which were speeding away from us in a manner that more than hinted at a primordial explosion. The idea of a big bang began to take shape.”
Hubble’s expanding universe concept which shaped big bang theory
“In the mid-1930s, Zwicky used it to open up a whole new mystery. He observed that the galaxies in the Coma cluster were moving too fast to make any sense. The average speed of galaxies within a cluster depends on the cluster's total mass, and the mass of the cluster, which Zwicky estimated from the total number of galaxies that could be observed, was too low. Theoretically, the mass did not have enough gravity to keep the galaxies bound to the cluster—they should have dispersed long ago. Yet there they were. Something was keeping them together. Far ahead of his time, Zwicky suggested that more than 90 percent of the mass of the Coma cluster was made of unseen matter. Nearly eighty years later, physicists are still trying to make sense of this "dark matter." On the trail of one such pioneering experiment, I soon found myself deep within an abandoned iron mine in Minnesota”
Pioneer of Dark Matter
“Did galaxies have any motions apart from those caused by the expansion of the universe? Her answer was yes.”
About Galaxies’ motions
“Soon after arriving, Rubin nailed the idea that galaxies have much more mass than can be accounted for by luminous matter alone. She was not the first to grapple with the problem of missing mass. By the mid-1930s, Fritz Zwicky had already observed that galaxies in the Coma cluster were moving at speeds too high to be explained by the cluster's observed mass. He reasoned that there had to be more mass in this and other clusters than met the eye, providing the gravity needed to hold the clusters together. But astronomers had never quite taken Zwicky's assertion about unseen mass seriously.”
About mass of galaxies
“The story of the neutrino begins in the late 1920s. Physicists had been puzzling over something called radioactive beta decay, in which an atom changes from, say, carbon-14 to nitrogen-14. Carbon-14 has eight neutrons and six protons. During beta decay, one of these neutrons decays into a proton and emits an electron. The new nucleus, now with seven protons and seven neutrons, is transformed into nitrogen-14. But during this process, some energy seemed to go missing, violating the law of conservation of energy. It was the Austrian-born physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli who finally figured out what was going on.”
Story of Neutrinos
“When Einstein published his general theory, in 1916, he overturned long-cherished Newtonian notions of gravity. No longer was it some kind of force exerted by one celestial object on another. Gravity, according to Einstein, arose as a result of the curvature of spacetime. Four-dimensional spacetime was not just a static backdrop to the motion of stars and planets, it was an active participant in the celestial drama. Any object, however small, caused spacetime to curve in a manner proportional to the object's mass, and everything in the vicinity of the object was now constrained to move along that curved spacetime. We can best visualize this by imagining a heavy ball placed on a taut rubber sheet. The ball dents the rubber sheet, and if a smaller ball starts rolling along the sheet, it has to follow the curvature forced upon the sheet by the heavier ball. If the smaller ball is too far away and the rubber sheet around it isn't affected by the heavier ball, the smaller ball will move as if the heavier one did not exist. The rubber sheet is analogous to spacetime, and the balls are analogous to planets, stars, and galaxies. Gravity, then, is the curvature of spacetime.
Light, like stars and planets, also has to follow the curvature of spacetime - for where else can it go?
Einstein predicted that light from a star passing close to the sun would bend ever so slightly toward the sun. In a now legendary experiment, British astronomer Arthur Eddington traveled to the island of Príncipe, off the coast of West Africa, to observe the position of stars during a total solar eclipse on May 29, 1919. That year, the eclipse could be viewed all along a stretch of the Atlantic, from Brazil to West Africa. Helpfully, the eclipsed sun was passing in front of the Hyades, a bright cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. Eddington photographed these stars during the eclipse and claimed that the sun was bending their light. Another team of astronomers, who had traveled to Sobral, in northern Brazil, to study the same phenomenon during the same eclipse, corroborated the findings. On September 27th, Einstein wrote in a postcard to his mother, "... joyous news today ... English expeditions have actually measured the deflection of starlight." “
Curvature of spacetime with an analogy of balls on the rubber sheet
“The first of the four gigantic mirrors came from France to Antofa-gasta in December 1997, after a month-long voyage by ship. Instead of the two hours or so it would take me, it took a massive trailer more than two days to reach the mountaintop. You could have walked up alongside it. The fragile load was treated with extreme care; at times, road graders smoothed the path in front of the trailer. In fact, the operation was so delicate that the ESO staff first did a test run of the entire process using a concrete dummy mirror weighing all of 23 tons, and only when they had worked out all the kinks did they transport the real mirror. Astronomers must have held their collective breath until the fourth and final mirror made it to the mountain-top in 2000”
On gigantic telescope mirrors
“Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, highest, and driest continent on the globe, exactly the conditions that have made it crucial to cosmology”
Geography of Antartica
“BESS is attempting to answer one of the most perplexing mysteries in cosmology: Why is our universe made of matter and not antimatter? After all, theory says that both matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts in the big bang. But matter abounds—in the form of stars, galaxies, planets, and people—while no one has ever detected a single particle of primordial antimatter. BESS is looking for one.”
BESS is to look for anti-matter
“But more than accidents, it's the method of drilling that's the greatest cause for concern. The team needed one that would be efficient. Boring into the ice with metal or diamond drill bits was deemed too slow—it would take an entire summer to drill just one hole. In any case, it's impractical to use mechanical drills to make a hole half a meter wide. Blasting with explosives is also not an option. The only solution is hot water. But, as Duling put it, "water in one of the coldest environments on Earth is a horrible combination." A veteran driller who had been with the team for many years, Dul-ing provided essential context. First, the hot water pouring out of the nozzle has to carry an astonishing amount of energy (a combination of its temperature and pressure) to melt the ice. "The nozzle puts out approximately sixty-seven hundred horsepower—that's about as powerful as the biggest railroad engine on Earth," he said—and as a former conductor on the Burlington Northern, he knew what he was talking about. But melting the ice is not enough; the drill has to keep plunging down. The IceCube setup uses gravity as an ingenious aid. The drill is weighted with more than half a ton of steel, so it sinks straight down like a plumb bob as the ice melts beneath it, deviating less than a meter from the vertical by the time it has reached the bottom. It takes twenty-four hours to descend 2.45 kilometers and ten hours to come back up, using more than 5,000 gallons of fuel, every ounce of which has to be flown in on U.S. military cargo planes.”
Method of drilling ice holes in Antarctic
“The conflict between general relativity and quantum mechanics has flummoxed physicists for decades. The former is a theory of gravity on the grandest of scales—that of the universe itself. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, illuminates the behavior of the smallest particles. Both work amazingly well at explaining the observed world, except in situations where they need to work together, such as inside a black hole, where enormous gravitational forces have to contend with matter compressed into microscopic volumes. Or in the very early universe, when spacetime, which is described by general relativity, was so small that the rules of quantum mechanics also held sway. Quantum mechanics has been successfully used to describe three of the four fundamental forces of nature: the electromagnetic force and the weak and strong nuclear forces. For each of these forces, physicists have what are called field theories—descriptions of fields specific to each force. Each force, in turn, is mediated by the exchange of particular particles—photons for the electromagnetic force, W and Z bosons for the weak nuclear force, and gluons for the strong nuclear force. The odd one out is gravity. There is no field theory for gravity, no particle that we know of that is exchanged between entities feeling its force (other than the hypothetical graviton). This is profoundly unsettling to physicists, who think that all the fundamental forces were unified as one in the early universe and hence should all be described using the same physics. “
4 natural forces
“Once the IceCube team drilled the first hole, a team led by Buford Price of UC Berkeley carried out a detailed analysis of the ice, using a tool called a dust logger. As this device is lowered down a hole in the ice, it fires a laser and analyzes the reflections. The dust logger showed that there are fine layers of dust within the ice, deposited over tens of thousands of years, some due to ancient volcanic eruptions. But below a depth of about 2,100 meters, the device found very little dust. The ice at 2,450 meters is more than sixty thousand years old—and crystal clear”
Mind boggling fact, 2km under the ice
“a statue on one side of Building 40 seems both anomalous and appropriate: a 6-foot-high cast-metal figure of the Hindu god Shiva. It stands at the end of a gravel-strewn path. In this particular form, as Nataraja, the king of dance, the multi-limbed, long-haired Shiva is dancing inside a giant ring of fire. His right leg is trampling the dwarf of ignorance; the left is raised, knee bent, in a posture of delicate balance. Nataraja dances to end one cosmic cycle and beget the next, a metaphor for the cyclical nature of the universe in Hindu cosmology. The historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy once wrote of the dance: Shiva rises from his rapture and, dancing, sends through inert matter pulsing waves of awakening sound. Suddenly, matter also dances, appearing as a brilliance around him. Dancing, Shiva sustains the world's diverse phenomena, its creation and existence. And, in the fullness of time, still dancing, he destroys all forms—everything disintegrates, apparently into nothingness, and is given new rest. Then, out of the thin vapor, matter and life are created again. Shiva's dance scatters the darkness of illusion, burns the thread of causality.”
About Shiva statue outside CERN
“Physics wasn't Gianotti's first love. "I came to physics from very far away," she told me. "When I was a young girl, I loved art and music. I had been studying piano quite seriously at a conservatory and had taken courses in high school targeted towards literature, languages like ancient Greek and Latin, philosophy, and history of art. I loved these subjects, but I was also a very curious little girl. I was fascinated by the big questions. Why are things the way they are? This possibility of answering fundamental questions has always attracted me—my mind, my spirit, everything." She stumbled upon physics soon afterward. "I discovered that physics is really interested in the most fundamental questions," she said. More than philosophy? "Even more," she said, speaking slowly to emphasize each syllable. "Because experimental physics is based on facts. It is answering fundamental questions—not just giving an answer to your question by inventing something, but proving it. This is very, very nice”
Transition story of a scientist from art to physics
“Most of the mass of atoms in the universe consists of protons and neutrons (electrons contribute less than one part in a thousand to the mass of atoms). Pro
March 28, 2010
The title of the book gives an impression of this book as one that deals primarily with the ideas like dark matter, dark energy, strings, supersymmetry and so on in a popular scientific way. However, it is more a travelogue of the far reaches of the Earth where experiments are undertaken in unravelling the secrets of Nature and the author's journey to these places to find out what is being done in all these places. There is an amount of personal-interest stories and popular history that he writes about in each of these places. The author seems to realize that at times the 'science' takes a backseat to these stories and so compensates for it by giving the background to many of the fundamental theories relating to strings, dark energy and the search for neutrinos and Higgs bosons. But somehow, it feels disjointed with the rest of the narrative.
I felt that it would have been better to start the book with a few chapters that summarize the history and science of how we got where we are today in theoretical physics and how experimental physics had evolved alongside, thereby setting the stage for his investigations into each of the ten sites he visits to delve deeper into the experiments. The travel stories about each of the site in itself is interesting but, in general, they take the focus away from 'science' for a reader like me, who is interested in popular science but not a qualified scientist in the field. I wish he had discussed in more detail the counter-points to some of these theories in the scientific community, thereby giving a more complete picture. For example, he writes about the conclusions of the string theory that says that there are 10^500 universes which are possible and that we may be living in just one of them. It sounds lame even to a layman like me that we need to postulate 10^500 Universes in order to explain the one we happen to inhabit. This is akin to many bizarre religious views of the origin of the 'world'. There are many contrary views of eminent scientists against such theories but the book gives the impression as though the scientific community has by and large resigned itself to the string view of the Universe.
The book is worth reading for the knowledge it disseminates about the frontier areas of experimental work in particle physics. I would recommend it as a good read.
I felt that it would have been better to start the book with a few chapters that summarize the history and science of how we got where we are today in theoretical physics and how experimental physics had evolved alongside, thereby setting the stage for his investigations into each of the ten sites he visits to delve deeper into the experiments. The travel stories about each of the site in itself is interesting but, in general, they take the focus away from 'science' for a reader like me, who is interested in popular science but not a qualified scientist in the field. I wish he had discussed in more detail the counter-points to some of these theories in the scientific community, thereby giving a more complete picture. For example, he writes about the conclusions of the string theory that says that there are 10^500 universes which are possible and that we may be living in just one of them. It sounds lame even to a layman like me that we need to postulate 10^500 Universes in order to explain the one we happen to inhabit. This is akin to many bizarre religious views of the origin of the 'world'. There are many contrary views of eminent scientists against such theories but the book gives the impression as though the scientific community has by and large resigned itself to the string view of the Universe.
The book is worth reading for the knowledge it disseminates about the frontier areas of experimental work in particle physics. I would recommend it as a good read.
August 20, 2018
I picked this book up at a local used book sale. Wonderful writing and lots of well explained phenomenal information. One big problem is that it was written in 2010 and a lot has been discovered since then. For that reason alone I can't say I recommend it. Perhaps Anil should write an updated version.
May 4, 2016
This book is a beautifully written travelogue that includes physics lessons for the lay reader and anecdotal histories. I enjoyed every minute of it.
January 6, 2019
Shiva’s Dance:
What a fantastic book! Join Anil Ananthaswamy on his pilgrimage around the world to visit as many of the most famous, and unusual, Observatories that he can get to. In his 2010 book “The Edge of Physics” Ananthaswamy shares his experiences on this global journey. Along the way he interviewed some of the top minds in astronomy and theoretical physics, seeking answers to many of the most pressing questions in modern science: Is Supersymmetry a valid theory? Is there actually a Higgs Boson?* And the hunt for Cosmological Neutrinos and the Neutralinos. As a layman-reader I really enjoyed this book although there were portions of the text that left me feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the complex theories of particle physics and the mysteries of cosmological history. But Ananthaswamy is very good at explaining these difficult concepts, his writing is layman friendly and very readable. Part travel log, part history and cutting edge science, this entertaining book left me hungry for more of the same. Starting out in California, USA, the author visits the Mt. Wilson Observatory and takes a side trip to visit a Camaldolese Monastery in the Santa Lucia Mountains to spend some time with one of the resident Monks and experience some really dark skies. From there he continued on to more exotic locations; the VLT at Cerro Paranal Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert; the Karoo region of So. Africa, possibly the future home of the SKA (Square Kilometer Array)— the other contender is in Australia; the controversial observatories atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii and with IceCube in Antarctica drilling for the Square Kilometer Neutrino Detector. The list goes on but, for me, the high point was his visit to CERN in Geneva, Switzerland to see ATLAS: the huge particle detector for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). While touring each facility the author discussed the ultimate goals of the scientists and engineers work and live there. And what are those goals? High on everybody’s list was a theory that combines General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics but they would also like to confirm Supersymmetry, look for validation to String Theory and the Multiverse. Ananthaswamy’s description of CERN and ATLAS is breathtaking. Working and doing research at CERN is definitely not for the faint of heart. With the dawning of the Space Age it wasn’t long before new observatories were being sent to “The Final Frontier” in the form of satellites like Hubble and Planck that can “park” at one of the Lagrangian Points to make their observations. And so the book closes with a look to the future when a new generation of scientists, and their tools, will be rewriting the composition and history of our universe. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenging book and I highly recommend it to anyone interested reading about space, time and the universe. I had no technical or downloading problems with this Kindle edition.
(* Higgs Boson was Discovered at CERN in 2012)
Last Ranger
July 28, 2024
If you are considering adding this book to your TBR list just be advised that the focus of this book is not on cutting-edge topics in physics. That’s what the publisher’s blurb on the back cover led me to believe. If you are after a discussion of dark matter, dark energy, and quantum gravity, as the blurb promises, you’d do much better to pick up Brian Clegg’s excellent book, Dark Matter, Dark Energy, for which I gave five stars.
This book spends a lot of time describing the people and places behind the scenes who allow scientific research to go on. If you’re an unsung experimental scientist you will love this book. The trouble is it doesn’t just give these many folks their fifteen minutes of fame, but it goes on to talk a lot about gardeners, tour guides, and truck drivers. And did I really need to know the details of who owned the property and built the original roads and structures on what is now the location of the Mount Wilson Observatory? Did I really need to know that the observatory staff building was previously a monastery, and before that a casino? Or the whole backstory of the tour guide going back to the 1930s? A few ancillary anecdotes are fine, but not page after page of arcane information! I don’t find that an edifying use of my time.
Imagine reading a biography about Beethoven (or pick your favorite historical person) and you get whole chunks of the book dedicated to interviews with Beethoven’s landlords, his maids, and even the bartender on what kind of beer Beethoven favored. That’s this book. I found the excess of peripheral minutia both exasperating and mind-numbingly tedious.
Still, there were pockets of engagement with the book. I enjoyed Chapter Ten the most, with its interesting description of the interpretive subtleties between Alan Guth’s Inflationary Universe and Andrei Linde’s “fractal patchwork.” My own interpretation (and feel free to add you own third-level of interpretation) is that these regions of varying compression and rarefaction do not necessarily point to isolated bubbles of a multiverse or parallel worlds, but rather, regions of space where gravitational waves have compressed or expanded spacetime to allow slightly different preferential polarization of photons.
I also enjoyed the accurate description of Lagrangian space, and why L2 makes for a perfect spot to park our observational devices in space. If more of the book had been about these kinds of “ah-hah” moments of revelation, then my rating would have been for four or five stars. Just know what you’re getting with this book, and manage your expectations accordingly.
This book spends a lot of time describing the people and places behind the scenes who allow scientific research to go on. If you’re an unsung experimental scientist you will love this book. The trouble is it doesn’t just give these many folks their fifteen minutes of fame, but it goes on to talk a lot about gardeners, tour guides, and truck drivers. And did I really need to know the details of who owned the property and built the original roads and structures on what is now the location of the Mount Wilson Observatory? Did I really need to know that the observatory staff building was previously a monastery, and before that a casino? Or the whole backstory of the tour guide going back to the 1930s? A few ancillary anecdotes are fine, but not page after page of arcane information! I don’t find that an edifying use of my time.
Imagine reading a biography about Beethoven (or pick your favorite historical person) and you get whole chunks of the book dedicated to interviews with Beethoven’s landlords, his maids, and even the bartender on what kind of beer Beethoven favored. That’s this book. I found the excess of peripheral minutia both exasperating and mind-numbingly tedious.
Still, there were pockets of engagement with the book. I enjoyed Chapter Ten the most, with its interesting description of the interpretive subtleties between Alan Guth’s Inflationary Universe and Andrei Linde’s “fractal patchwork.” My own interpretation (and feel free to add you own third-level of interpretation) is that these regions of varying compression and rarefaction do not necessarily point to isolated bubbles of a multiverse or parallel worlds, but rather, regions of space where gravitational waves have compressed or expanded spacetime to allow slightly different preferential polarization of photons.
I also enjoyed the accurate description of Lagrangian space, and why L2 makes for a perfect spot to park our observational devices in space. If more of the book had been about these kinds of “ah-hah” moments of revelation, then my rating would have been for four or five stars. Just know what you’re getting with this book, and manage your expectations accordingly.
May 10, 2018
Poetic, Prosaic or Pedantic?
This gentleman, and his editor Ms Cook, cobbled together an amazing book, combining science, cultural, physical and anthropological geography, geology, travel to exotic and revered scientific locations on earth, then providing glimpses into both deep space and quantum mechanics. (This sentence is a microcosm of the style of the book)
I reveled in some amazingly poetic prose as he described the locations that housed or supported an amazing array of telescopes located in places few care to venture. Fortunately for us, he went to those often hostile places and spent as much time writing on the geographies mentioned above, as the hard-core science that motivated their existence.
It’s a complex story. It includes acronyms and names enough to dissuade a reader from continuing, but then he slips in something fascinating about places or an Ideas, both here on earth and into the multiverse.
He is careful to include a multitude of scientists and support personnel, past and present, who labor in difficult places without much recognition or human comfort. It’s a Who’s Who of science, and very few receive awards or devices, theories or systems named for them, all do their part to bring knowledge to we who glibly receive it from our easy chairs.
If nothing else resonates with the reader, the glossaries and indices at the end of the book can be used for further study and clarification.
Four stars only reflect my inability to understand large sections of the scientific prose, not the author’s vast knowledge or broad-based education, which is quite stunning.
I found that having Google Earth and Wikipedia close by enabled me to stop and see many of the places and images contained in his writing. Pictures in the text or at the end of the book would have made this far more enjoyable.
If one reads only what they can easily understand, this will be well worth their investment in time. As my father used to say “Eat the meat and spit out the bones”.
This gentleman, and his editor Ms Cook, cobbled together an amazing book, combining science, cultural, physical and anthropological geography, geology, travel to exotic and revered scientific locations on earth, then providing glimpses into both deep space and quantum mechanics. (This sentence is a microcosm of the style of the book)
I reveled in some amazingly poetic prose as he described the locations that housed or supported an amazing array of telescopes located in places few care to venture. Fortunately for us, he went to those often hostile places and spent as much time writing on the geographies mentioned above, as the hard-core science that motivated their existence.
It’s a complex story. It includes acronyms and names enough to dissuade a reader from continuing, but then he slips in something fascinating about places or an Ideas, both here on earth and into the multiverse.
He is careful to include a multitude of scientists and support personnel, past and present, who labor in difficult places without much recognition or human comfort. It’s a Who’s Who of science, and very few receive awards or devices, theories or systems named for them, all do their part to bring knowledge to we who glibly receive it from our easy chairs.
If nothing else resonates with the reader, the glossaries and indices at the end of the book can be used for further study and clarification.
Four stars only reflect my inability to understand large sections of the scientific prose, not the author’s vast knowledge or broad-based education, which is quite stunning.
I found that having Google Earth and Wikipedia close by enabled me to stop and see many of the places and images contained in his writing. Pictures in the text or at the end of the book would have made this far more enjoyable.
If one reads only what they can easily understand, this will be well worth their investment in time. As my father used to say “Eat the meat and spit out the bones”.
December 13, 2025
The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy is a compelling exploration of modern physics at its most uncertain frontiers.
Rather than focusing on established theories, the book examines what scientists still don’t know—and how they are pushing the boundaries of knowledge in their attempt to understand reality.
Ananthaswamy travels to some of the world’s most extreme research sites: underground neutrino detectors, Antarctic telescopes, particle accelerators, and cosmic observatories.
Each location becomes a gateway to profound questions about dark matter, quantum gravity, spacetime, and the nature of the universe itself.
What distinguishes this book is its journalistic approach. Ananthaswamy embeds himself within the scientific process, interviewing researchers as they grapple with unanswered questions. He captures the uncertainty, frustration, and excitement of science in progress, emphasising that discovery is rarely linear.
The book excels at explaining abstract ideas without oversimplifying them. Concepts such as extra dimensions, quantum foam, and cosmic inflation are unpacked with clarity and care.
Ananthaswamy consistently reminds readers where theory ends and speculation begins, preserving intellectual honesty.
Equally important is the human element. Scientists are portrayed not as detached geniuses but as curious, passionate individuals driven by wonder.
Their doubts and disagreements become part of the narrative, illustrating how knowledge advances through debate and revision.
Stylistically, the prose is clear and engaging, though some sections demand close attention. The subject matter is inherently challenging, but the author’s steady guidance makes it navigable.
The Edge of Physics ultimately celebrates uncertainty. It argues that the most exciting science happens not where answers are secure, but where questions remain open.
For readers intrigued by the unknown, this book offers a thrilling glimpse into the future of physics.
Most recommended.
Rather than focusing on established theories, the book examines what scientists still don’t know—and how they are pushing the boundaries of knowledge in their attempt to understand reality.
Ananthaswamy travels to some of the world’s most extreme research sites: underground neutrino detectors, Antarctic telescopes, particle accelerators, and cosmic observatories.
Each location becomes a gateway to profound questions about dark matter, quantum gravity, spacetime, and the nature of the universe itself.
What distinguishes this book is its journalistic approach. Ananthaswamy embeds himself within the scientific process, interviewing researchers as they grapple with unanswered questions. He captures the uncertainty, frustration, and excitement of science in progress, emphasising that discovery is rarely linear.
The book excels at explaining abstract ideas without oversimplifying them. Concepts such as extra dimensions, quantum foam, and cosmic inflation are unpacked with clarity and care.
Ananthaswamy consistently reminds readers where theory ends and speculation begins, preserving intellectual honesty.
Equally important is the human element. Scientists are portrayed not as detached geniuses but as curious, passionate individuals driven by wonder.
Their doubts and disagreements become part of the narrative, illustrating how knowledge advances through debate and revision.
Stylistically, the prose is clear and engaging, though some sections demand close attention. The subject matter is inherently challenging, but the author’s steady guidance makes it navigable.
The Edge of Physics ultimately celebrates uncertainty. It argues that the most exciting science happens not where answers are secure, but where questions remain open.
For readers intrigued by the unknown, this book offers a thrilling glimpse into the future of physics.
Most recommended.
December 23, 2023
Physics and Mathematics two cousins which I scared a lot during my school days. Now the same Physics fascinates me more and more.
The Edge of Physics is an interesting and informative read that demystifies the cosmos, dark energy, neutrinos etc... It's a perfect book for anyone curious about the universe's biggest questions.
Neutrinos, the term which I less familiar with. Ananthaswamy dedicates a particularly fascinating chapter to these elusive subatomic particles, highlighting their potential as cosmic messengers and probes of the universe's early moments. He vividly describes the challenges of detecting these ghosts of the cosmos, from the massive IceCube neutrino telescope in Antarctica to the delicate experiments deep within mineshafts. He explores the possibility of neutrinos revealing the nature of dark matter, their role in supernovae, and even hints at their potential connection to the elusive Higgs boson.
This book is highly recommended for science enthusiasts, curious minds, and anyone who wants to know more about the cosmic wonders. Most of the astrophysics books contain complex formulas, the writers usually try to explain the complexity of universes with the help of those formulas. But here the book contains no such things, it's just like a story where we can turn each page without fearing complex Physics equations.
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms”. - Muriel Rukeyser
The Edge of Physics is an interesting and informative read that demystifies the cosmos, dark energy, neutrinos etc... It's a perfect book for anyone curious about the universe's biggest questions.
Neutrinos, the term which I less familiar with. Ananthaswamy dedicates a particularly fascinating chapter to these elusive subatomic particles, highlighting their potential as cosmic messengers and probes of the universe's early moments. He vividly describes the challenges of detecting these ghosts of the cosmos, from the massive IceCube neutrino telescope in Antarctica to the delicate experiments deep within mineshafts. He explores the possibility of neutrinos revealing the nature of dark matter, their role in supernovae, and even hints at their potential connection to the elusive Higgs boson.
This book is highly recommended for science enthusiasts, curious minds, and anyone who wants to know more about the cosmic wonders. Most of the astrophysics books contain complex formulas, the writers usually try to explain the complexity of universes with the help of those formulas. But here the book contains no such things, it's just like a story where we can turn each page without fearing complex Physics equations.
“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms”. - Muriel Rukeyser
August 31, 2021
Scientists, man. Or physicists. Or theoreticians. They figure these things then prove these things then apply these things to things to make things like clearer and shit. And I love it.
Anil did a fantastic job really dumbing down what he was talking about. Kinda sorta understanding made for a much better read than a hardcore cosmology case study. I also enjoy his sense of humor.
Except for chapter ten. Like what the heck is he going on about? Outer space and multiverses, stay on the opposite side of whatever room I'm in, please.
What really makes this readable is the travelogue within the science. He has a blast traveling the world top to bottom and I don't get motion sickness. Win win. Interesting characters everywhere you turn. Or those're just the ones Anil wrote about.
If I had to complain, it'd be the disaffected skeptic within me that asks such questions as, 'Who cares?', 'Why is this important?', 'Couldn't money spent on this be put to better use somewhere else?' That's probably from my lifelong tendency of not having a hobby.
Anil did a fantastic job really dumbing down what he was talking about. Kinda sorta understanding made for a much better read than a hardcore cosmology case study. I also enjoy his sense of humor.
Except for chapter ten. Like what the heck is he going on about? Outer space and multiverses, stay on the opposite side of whatever room I'm in, please.
What really makes this readable is the travelogue within the science. He has a blast traveling the world top to bottom and I don't get motion sickness. Win win. Interesting characters everywhere you turn. Or those're just the ones Anil wrote about.
If I had to complain, it'd be the disaffected skeptic within me that asks such questions as, 'Who cares?', 'Why is this important?', 'Couldn't money spent on this be put to better use somewhere else?' That's probably from my lifelong tendency of not having a hobby.
April 23, 2022
Real airport-bookshop fare. Lots (and lots and lots and lots) of filler, just more or less random crap about whatever the author felt like writing about. All of this book's content actually about its professed subject - telescopes and whatever else - could have fitted into one chapter.
You know, I thought "Ok, this book is airport-bookshop crap, but I'll finish it anyway", but I just couldn't face any more vaguely related waffle. Yes, there are a few interesting bits and pieces, mostly about using glaciers and lakes as neutrino detectors and, thus, effectively as telescopes, but that's pretty much it.
If you know anything about anything to do with physics or the big ideas that are currently being kicked around, you are going to find this book simple and boring.
You know, I thought "Ok, this book is airport-bookshop crap, but I'll finish it anyway", but I just couldn't face any more vaguely related waffle. Yes, there are a few interesting bits and pieces, mostly about using glaciers and lakes as neutrino detectors and, thus, effectively as telescopes, but that's pretty much it.
If you know anything about anything to do with physics or the big ideas that are currently being kicked around, you are going to find this book simple and boring.
April 14, 2018
I found this to be an excellent consolidation of where things are with "big physics" and cosmology. The writing was clear, entertaining and well-edited. Ananthaswamy did a great job of linking historical discoveries such as the magnitude of galactic distances with the more recent surprises and mysteries such as accelerating expansion and dark energy. The descriptions of the logistics of humans working in extreme research sites such as abandoned mines, high elevation mountain tops, Lake Baikal in winter, and the South Pole Station provided welcome relief to what could have been tedious descriptions of the extreme physics experiments going on at those locations.
September 6, 2020
I discovered this book from a video on YouTube, uploaded by the channel Tibees, entitled "Books for Learning Physics". In the video, the narrator, Toby Hendy, a mathematics and physics graduate, is present with a guest, David Gozzard, who also has a background in physics. Toby states that, along with Marcus Chown, one of her favourite pop-science writers was this book, written by Anil Ananthaswamy.
Toby claims that the book introduces you to things like big neutrino telescopes, which they have in Antarctica as well as in old abandoned gold mines, just science experiments on the edge of science that you might not have known existed.
Toby claims that the book introduces you to things like big neutrino telescopes, which they have in Antarctica as well as in old abandoned gold mines, just science experiments on the edge of science that you might not have known existed.
October 8, 2022
A search for an explanation of the universe - for proof to back up the theories and a look at the efforts in progress for that proof. These experiments are conducted at some of the most remote locations on earth using telescopes, radio detection and particle detection. The descriptions of these are fascinating from the telescopes in Chili and on Maura Kea to the Antarctic and Lake Baikail in Russia to Karoo in South Africa and more. The descriptions of the activity are interesting and the locations and facilities are amazing. Wish there were more pictures of the locations.
May 7, 2017
A travel book around places where cosmology is done with some well explained cosmology to round it off. Hasn't dated badly. I enjoyed it a lot and it would have got a full four stars if the section on the Large Hadron Colider has been less long. And just after reading that section there was a TV program which included some of the places he had been and up to date video and reports of the LHC and Atlas which gave an extra thrill.
April 5, 2018
This interesting volume provides a well-written geographical romp through many of the remote astronomical observatories dotted from Hawaii to Antarctica, and along the way gives a pretty good account of the physics involved in the questions and quests facing modern cosmologists and astronomers. While I did not understand the physics side of the story, I thoroughly enjoyed Anil's descriptions of the places he visited, and his anecdotes about the many explorers and scientists he met along the way. My only criticism is that I was mystified by how he could cover the physics involved without mentioning Stephen Hawking. He does list 'A Brief History of Time' in his bibliography, but to the best of my memory, we hear nothing from Hawking in the body of the work. I have now started reading Hawking's book, and reckon Anil owes a big debt to him!
December 18, 2019
Quite a trip
The author take you on a tour of the leading edges of physics and a tour of the remote places where the work is taking place. The journey adds to the fun. Where the science is sometimes hard to understand the travelogue from mountainous oxygen deprived observatories, detectors deep underground and sub zero sites at the South Pole is great. Nice combination of science, geography, history and future vision.
The author take you on a tour of the leading edges of physics and a tour of the remote places where the work is taking place. The journey adds to the fun. Where the science is sometimes hard to understand the travelogue from mountainous oxygen deprived observatories, detectors deep underground and sub zero sites at the South Pole is great. Nice combination of science, geography, history and future vision.
December 31, 2019
A bit outdated at this point. The author mentions that the Higgs Boson and gravitational waves have not been found yet but both have been found since the publishing of this book. Certain parts were very interesting but others were slow enough that I had to skim to make it through. At times this book is geared more towards those that have no background in the subject and at other times it seems to be more detailed that a beginner would be able to comprehend. I would not read this book again.
April 9, 2019
Normally I love these types of books - I primarily read nonfiction and love learning about science, particularly because I provide legal support for incredible scientific endeavors. This book was okay but the writing was not very compelling. I had to put effort into finishing it, which is incredibly rare for me.
November 10, 2019
OK, what did I just read?
College and high school, physics and chemistry classes were 50 years ago. Black matter, quarks and newspaper articles about Hubble and Nobel prizes in science are interesting, but without defining knowledge for me. This book provided me with an interest in particle physics and cosmology.
College and high school, physics and chemistry classes were 50 years ago. Black matter, quarks and newspaper articles about Hubble and Nobel prizes in science are interesting, but without defining knowledge for me. This book provided me with an interest in particle physics and cosmology.
August 31, 2020
The Universe: All We Know
A tough read to the end, even with a background in physics. BUT, both entertaining as to description of olaces and situations we will never see or experience. The author took on a huge job of pulling all our knowledge\e about the universe(s) together, from the sub-atomoc level to the unimaginably vast dimensions of the whole of time and space.
A tough read to the end, even with a background in physics. BUT, both entertaining as to description of olaces and situations we will never see or experience. The author took on a huge job of pulling all our knowledge\e about the universe(s) together, from the sub-atomoc level to the unimaginably vast dimensions of the whole of time and space.
October 5, 2019
Interesting stories of remote places on earth where mankind seeks to unlock the secrets of the universe. From a huge lake in Russia to the South Pole, the "adventure stories" about science are well written and embued with the author's personal experiences.
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